Liverpool

They're making moves. I've been telling my friends to get in the bandwagon now while there's room, because this team is going to become one of the best in England soon. Actually, I've been telling them that since NESV took over.

As I'm writing this, Torres's future is uncertain. Effing get rid of him. If it's 50 million pounds, it's worth it. And don't take Anelka-- for all NESV's record of signing baseball-centric players in Boston, and their talk of keeping Liverpool players who want to be there, they let Cammoli go after Nicolas Anelka? This is the guy who made the scene at the World Cup last year for boycotting training, and doing so as publicly as he could. He also dove to get his countryman sent off in the Champions League semifinal a few years ago, which didn't get too much media attention due to the rest of the circus in that game. I hope this is just a media ploy, and I have a feeling it is. The cash is enough, and that way they'll take a pure and positive step toward creating a team-oriented team.

I'm pumped to see Luis Suarez play for Liverpool. The fee was about what I'd expect it to be (22.8 million euro). For all his misbehavior (deliberate hand-ball versus Ghana, ear biting incident in the Dutch league), this guy is team-oriented. I loved what he said when the transfer was starting to hit the media: "I will decline any offer from clubs like Shakhtar Donetsk or [Zenit] St. Petersburg where they offer you sacks full of money. I've an obsession to win trophies. I am a South American with the mentality to win." Beast. He doesn't bow to just anyone.

My thesis of this paragraph is that John Brewin is a piece of crap. This is his piece on Liverpool from a couple weeks ago. He just seems like a piece of crap to me. Don't you agree? Listen to the ESPN Soccernet podcast and then get back to me, because you can really tell there. For some reason, someone made him a senior editor (THE senior editor? Not sure how that works, but I hope there's at least one other senior editor to serve as a check).

Some other guy wrote a really good piece around the same time as that one was published, but I can't find it. I think it was on ESPN, but it could have been Sky or BBC. His point was that despite no wins so far, at that point, there was a lot of progress at the club, between the unity provided by Dalglish and the increasing number of young home-grown players making the team. Now there's a good article. Too bad I can't find it to show you, sorry.

Everyone in the Cambridge area should go see the Chelsea-Liverpool game Sunday at Phoenix Landing. Should be a huuuge crowd, especially if this Torres deal goes down. The last time the Steelers played in the superbowl (against the 8-8, got-totalled-by-the-Patriots-in-week-17 Arizona Cardinals), there was a Liverpool-Chelsea game in the morning in which Torres scored twice in stoppage time to win 2-0. What a game that was. Hopefully they win again this time.

-John

Liverpool 2-2 Everton

I watched Liverpool draw Everton at Phoenix Landing today. That's the Liverpool-oriented pub in Cambridge where you can go to see the Liverpool fans sing in a jam-packed and loud setting.

I was rooting for Liverpool. NESV's ownership makes them feel more like a home team than any other non-US club, to me. There seems to be a more positive air around the club since Dalglish took over, even though it's still early in his stint. It was particularly strong today, since they were playing Everton at Anfield. The players seemed to respond to it. It ended 2-2, but Liverpool looked really really good in the first half, and steadied the ship after temporarily losing the momentum in the first ten minutes or so of the second half. It was a frustrating but also exciting game.

The Liverpool fans at that bar are a weird bunch. I don't think I like them. There was one gal that made fun of Tim Howard for having tourrettes syndrome. She was American, which made it marginally more irritating than it would have been had she been English, or of some other enthicity. There are also others who just rub me the wrong way. The ones that fit into this category tend to be American, gluttonous, and ingenuine. How does an American become so obsessive about an English soccer club, so much that (s)he uses the word "we" to refer to the club as if it were his (her) home team, so much that she makes fun of her own national team goalie for having tourrettes? There's something fishy there. The most annoying part is that I don't think she even meant it; she was just doing it to satisfy her own low self-esteem. Bam! That's the ingenuine part about certain "Liverpool supporters" that irks me.

It's still totally worth it to see a game at that place, with those people. Please do it if you live in the Cambridge area.

-John